Houghton To Release 100K First Printing of Alison Bechdel Memoir

By Calvin Reid
|

Jan 04, 2012

The graphic nonfiction category will get a big boost this spring when Houghton Mifflin Harcourt releases the newest work by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, author of the acclaimed and bestselling 2006 comics memoir Fun Home. On May 1 HMH will release a 100,000 copy first printing of Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama, a graphic memoir that will explore Bechdel’s relationship with her mother.

The release of a 100,000 copy first printing for Bechdel’s second book, essentially a sequel to her acclaimed Fun Home, is a measure of Bechdel’s literary stature as well as the growth in her popularity. “It’s one of one of our lead titles for the spring,” Lori Glazer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt v-p and executive director of publicity. “It’s a long awaited sequel to Fun Home, which received such a great reaction when we first published it,” Glazer said.

In much the same way that Fun Home examined the life of her father, Are You My Mother?, will examine Bechdel’s “difficult” relationship with her mother, who Glazer said, was “a gifted but frustrated and unhappy artist married to closeted gay man.” Bechdel’s editor, Deanne Urmy, described the book’s artwork as, “line drawing with ink wash and second color spot art.”

Glazer said the book will be released in May (along with an e-book edition) and will include a national book tour by Bechdel that will include New York, Washington D.C., Vermont, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. The book will be supported by national print and online advertising, social media and a video promotion.

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